The present disclosure relates to weatherstrips each sealing a clearance between a peripheral portion of a roof panel covering an opening in an upper portion of a vehicle and a portion of the vehicle around the opening in the upper portion of the vehicle.
Conventionally, roof panels each opening or closing an opening in an upper portion of a vehicle as described in, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2010-260393 have been known. A clearance between a peripheral portion of such a roof panel and a portion of a vehicle around an opening in an upper portion of a vehicle is sealed with a roof weatherstrip.
The weatherstrip includes an attachment portion and a flexible seal wall. The attachment portion is attached to a frame toward the interior of a cabin, and extends along the clearance in a generally horizontal direction. The seal wall is continuous with an upper part of the attachment portion, and has a generally U-shaped cross section. The seal wall and the attachment portion define a hollow portion. A lower surface of the peripheral portion of the roof panel and a lower surface of the portion of the vehicle around the opening in the upper portion of the vehicle contact the seal wall from above.
In recent years, vehicles configured such that such a roof panel as described above can be replaced with another roof panel of a different type (material) to meet the driver's or passenger's preferences have been known. Replaceable roof panels for such a vehicle are of different types (materials), and are thus designed to have different thicknesses to ensure the rigidity required when such replaceable roof panels each have been attached to the vehicle. To allow the vehicle to have an aesthetically pleasing appearance, an upper surface of a roof panel and an upper surface of a portion of the vehicle around an opening in an upper portion of the vehicle are typically designed to be generally flush with each other. For this reason, variations in roof panel thickness may cause a lower surface of a peripheral portion of the roof panel to be significantly below a lower surface of the portion of the vehicle around the opening in the upper portion of the vehicle.